What are the best practices and tools to automate and streamline your CLM processes?

At a broad level CLM should aim towards solving the 5 main challenges. Data centralization and unification - This can be done through a CDP which will de dupe and segment the data basis their behavior. Automating your communication - This can be done through a customer journey mapping tool which will automate your campaigns and communication. Loyalty management - Through an effective loyalty platform brands can customize their programs. Sales force automation - SFA can help you with effective lead management system to fix the leaky sales pipeline. Analytics and reporting - Measurement of your efforts through KPI tracking and attribution to marketing campaigns will give you a sense if you are going in the right direction or not.

Most of the CLM tools can be effectively used. To effectively utilize CLM tools we need to make sure we are targeting users for every touchpoint in the customer lifecycle: -Onboarding -Signup -Engagement -Potential Churn -Churn -Reactivation Through effective automated, manual, and triggered campaigns we can streamline CLM processes.

I agree, but this is a very simplistic overview of CLV. In reality, CLV is a much more powerful metric. It should help provide an alternative, actual view of the value of your business now and into the future. It can help you plan future products and services, optimise operational processes, understand where to invest marketing time, effort and money. I could go in for hours about how pivotal this calculation is to a business. This summary really oversimplifies and undervalues this calculation at an individual level multiplied by potentially millions of customers over a businesses lifetime!

Understanding CAC is pivotal for assessing acquisition strategies. It encompasses all expenses—marketing, advertising, sales, and onboarding—involved in converting a customer. For example, if a company spends $10,000 on marketing and acquires 100 customers, the CAC is $100 per customer. Tracking CAC aids in optimizing strategies for cost-efficient customer acquisition.

Agree, at a high level. In reality, businesses often “acquire” a customer when they have failed to “win” them “back” post a CLM retention strategy such as a phone contract renewal at month 9 of 12. For example, was this simply a failed retention strategy (and taken into account with another metric such as a churn model) or a genuine acquisition? Getting to a true acquisition cost is difficult and largely based on the complexity and size of the organisation trying to calculate it. Tracking a “customer” is difficult enough for most businesses , especially now with digital attribution and the soon to be cookie-less world…will we even be able to measure true acquisition in the very near future?

Again, all true and correct at a very high level. In reality, businesses are far more complex than the note suggests. Unfortunately, business operate in silos and it is rarely the failure or otherwise of a CLM strategy and it’s attempted processes (a marketing concept). Most companies still do not have a unified, single customer view of their business that operates a real time omni-channel customer experience. Perhaps a very small business could use the simplicity of this ratio? However, they are the most likely business size to actually know (and care about) their customers on an individual level and optimise their experience on a genuine one-to-one level.

CLV and CAC serve as crucial indicators of business viability and expansion prospects. For instance, consider a software company with a CLV of $500 and a CAC of $200. The CLV/CAC ratio is 2.5, indicating healthy profitability and efficient customer acquisition. Conversely, a CLV/CAC ratio below 1 suggests unsustainable spending on customer acquisition relative to their lifetime value, highlighting the need for strategic adjustments in CLM processes.

Why CLV and CAC matter in ecommerce: 6 reasons (not "because everyone says so"): 1. CLV shows loyalty value $500 spent over 3 years? Valuable customer. 2. CAC reveals growth costs $50 to acquire a $40 sale? You're losing money. 3. Together = profitability 3:1 CLV-to-CAC ratio? Sustainable growth. 4. CLV focuses on retention Keeping customers beats finding new ones. 5. CAC optimizes marketing Know which channels work best. 6. Guide pricing decisions High CAC? Maybe raise prices. 10+ years in ecommerce taught me: Understanding these metrics = clearer, more profitable business. When you get these numbers, running an ecommerce business becomes exciting. You're in control of what really matters!

True. Again high level and probably the most relevant to newer/modern or cloud based/first companies. Any company over 5 years old would have more legacy tech to contend with and not be able to calculate through HubSpot or ProfitWell. Complexity for older companies comes from getting to a single view of the truth and then getting the silos/c-suite vs operations of a business to all agree on a calculation that resembles reality or even a BI team vs a data science team to agree on a calculation!

This section is pretty unhelpful and not based in reality for the majority of even small to mediums sized businesses, let alone complex global organisations. Assuming you may have used Chat GPT and got a 2021 bias here?

Potentially helpful to some at a high level, just too simplistic for most businesses I have encountered in the last 20 years of calculating these metrics and implementing them in organisations.